“Simon! Simon! For God’s sake!” whimpered Andrew, weeping abundantly; “come home, Mother is after you!” Indeed, she was there directly, together with Yagna; and they both got the lads from beneath the hedge, where they were making some feeble attempts to fight. After their departure, other people also went out, and the tavern grew somewhat less noisy. At last no one remained there but Boryna and his messengers, with Ambrose and the blind beggar, all now drinking at one table. Ambrose was very mellow indeed. He stood up in their midst, now singing, now shouting very loud. “He was quite black—black as that pot! He aimed ... but where did he hit me? where?... And I—I thrust my bayonet into him, and twisted it: I heard his inside gurgle!—So we halt—halt! And the commander himself arrives with more men.—Ah! the commander! ‘Boys,’ he says, ‘boys!’” “‘Attention!’” the old man cried, in a voice of thunder. And he stood stiffly erect, and stepped slowly backwards, his wooden leg stumping along the floor: “Drink to me, Peter! to me who am an orphan!” he bleated out; but when close to the wall, suddenly he whipped out of the place. But they could still hear the braying of his voice, raised in song outside. Just then the miller entered the tavern: a big burly fellow, red-faced, dressed town-fashion, and with small keen eyes. “Drink, lads, drink together!—Ho, ho! the Voyt, the Soltys, and Boryna!—Is it a wedding?” “No, it is not.—Sir miller, take a drink with us,” Boryna said. And once more the vodka went round. “Well, now to you all three thus together, I shall tell some news that will sober you in no time.” All stared at him vacantly. “Not an hour since, the Squire sold the clearing of Vilche Doly!” “The hound! the miscreant! What, sell a clearing that belongs to our village!” Boryna shouted, smashing a bottle on the floor in a fit of rage. “Sold it, has he? But there is law—law both for the Squire and for all of us!” Simon stammered; he was completely intoxicated. “It’s false! I, your Voyt, have spoken: believe me, it’s false!” “Sold it! Ha!—But we won’t let anyone take it: as there’s a God in heaven, we won’t!” Boryna growled, and he brought his fist down upon the table. The miller left them, and they stayed there far into the night, taking counsel together, and breathing threats against the manor-folk. CHAPTER IX It was shortly after Yagna’s engagement had taken place; All Souls’ Day had dawned. Ever since morning, the church-bells of Lipka had tolled incessantly, slowly; their doleful and sorrowful notes, floating over the desolate fields, called the people together with deep-sounding voices of sadness on this day, which rose pallid and swaddled in fog, as far as the far-off horizon—where the earth and the sky met, no one knew where, in a vague unfathomed abyss of vacuity.